March 10, 2005

What is it that triggers the brain to produce a religious experience? One route to understanding is the Shakti headset, which puts brain stimulation back in the hands of the individual rather than being something done to people in a lab.

As an American chronicler in this field, John Horgan, has remarked: “Trying to understand mystical experiences without having one, is like a eunuch trying to understand sex.”

March 9, 2005

Stanford University researchers plan to create a chimera mouse whose brain cells are 100 per cent human, using stem cells from aborted fetuses.

The university’s ethics committee approved the research, under certain conditions. Prof Henry Greely, the head of the committee, said: “If the mouse shows human-like behaviours, like improved memory or problem-solving, it’s time to stop.”

March 9, 2005

People cannot process more than four variables at a time, new research shows.

Recognizing these human limitations can make a difference when designing high-stress work environments — such as air-traffic control centers — where employees must keep in mind several variables all at once.

March 9, 2005

Researchers from Stanford University have constructed an extremely small transistor from a pair of single-walled carbon nanotubes and organic molecules.

The researchers cut metallic nanotubes to form electrodes, then deposited one of two organic materials to form a semiconducting channel between the electrodes. It could be used in practical applications in two to five years.

March 8, 2005

Laughing appears to be almost as beneficial as a workout in boosting the health of blood vessels, a new study suggests.

Results of the study, based on ultrasound measurements of blood flow and dilation in the brachial artery in the arm, suggest that laughter could help keep the lining of the arteries healthy and thus reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

March 8, 2005

NASA Ames scientists are advancing the technology of remote exploration.

The K9 rover is a robot similar to the Mars rovers, but that can perform tasks 10 times faster and can figure out how to do some tasks. Snakebot, which mimics the movements of a snake, would be able to probe even crevices and small caves on another planet.

March 7, 2005

With CIA backing, Attensity has developed a method to parse electronic documents almost instantly and diagram all of the sentences inside, helping turn chatter into information that is relevant and usable.

March 4, 2005

First evidence for entanglement of three macroscopic objects has been seen in a superconducting circuit built at the University of Maryland.

By examining an electrical circuit operating at temperatures near absolute zero, the researchers have found new evidence that the laws of quantum mechanics apply not just to microscopic particles such as atoms and electrons, but also to large electronic devices called superconducting quantum bits (qubits).

March 4, 2005

Analysis of the diminutive cranium of Homo floresiensis – a one-meter-tall hobbit-like human that lived in Indonesia just 13,000 years ago – confirms it as a unique species and that it has advanced morphological features, including ones associated with complex brain processes in living humans.

March 3, 2005

Roger Penrose’s newly published The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe is a rigorous and exhaustive map to the “theory of nearly everything.”

Among his controversial ideas: Penrose proposes that the missing link between macroscopic and submicroscopic is gravity. Aggregations of particles exist in their blurry quantum mechanical states until so many particles are both here and there that space-time itself — which… read more

March 2, 2005

Two superconducting devices have been coaxed into a special, interdependent state that mimics the unusual interactions sometimes seen in pairs of atoms, an important step toward the possible use of “artificial atoms” made with superconducting materials for storing and processing data in an ultra-powerful quantum computer of the future.

Research using real atoms as qubits has advanced rapidly, but superconducting circuits offer the advantage of being easily… read more